"The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers."

-Tim Cook

Tim Cook's open letter to Apple's customers openly describes the most recent backdoor request from the FBI. We have discussed the importance of encryption and what it means in a previous Academy post. In this most recent case, the FBI has made requests to the phone manufacturer to gain access into the encrypted contents of the San Bernardino terrorist's iPhone by making modifications to encryption securities built into iOS. Cook and the company is taking a strong stance against weakening their smartphone encryption by creating backdoor access for law enforcement. The FBI has requested Apple to modify their software to allow an unlimited number of passcode attempts that can also be run by a modern computer. This 'brute-force' technique requires the agency to try every single one of the millions of passcode combinations possible to unlock the seized phone.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and ACLU have both come out in support of Apple's stance. Just like Apple, they argue that the modification requested by the FBI require a major change that would affect the devices of millions of users.